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How the Lights Have Gone Out For the People of Syria (bbc.co.uk)
dryriver shares an excerpt from a report via the BBC that shows what the impact of the Syrian war looks like from space: Six years of war in Syria have had a devastating effect on millions of its people. One of the most catastrophic impacts has been on the country's electricity network. Images from NASA, obtained by BBC Arabic, show clearly how the lights have gone out during the course of the conflict, leaving people to survive with little to no power. Each timelapse frame shows an average of the light emitted at night every month from 2012, one year after the war began. They show that the areas where Syrians can turn lights on at night, power their daily lives and get access to life-saving medical equipment, have shrunk dramatically. The city of Aleppo was Syria's powerhouse and home to over two million people. But the country's industrial hub became a battleground and remained so for more than four years. Russian airstrikes against Syrian rebels began in October 2015 and the timelapse shows the city in almost complete darkness at night throughout 2016, when the battle for Aleppo was at its peak. As mains power supplies dropped off, ordinary people had to be creative in finding alternative sources for light and power.
Ending the war is simple - the "rebels" should surrender. They have no chance of winning, not anymore.
American policy in Syria has been a disaster.
1. Give the rebels enough support to fight but not enough to win.
2. Insist that a precondition for peace is that Assad has to go.
3. Refuse to acknowledge that Assad is winning the war and has no reason whatsoever to agree to #2.
4. Watch the war drag on as Syrian refugees flood into Europe, spreading discontent and instability.
The obvious solution is a partition. The Syrian Kurds can join with the Iraqi Kurds in an independent Kurdistan.
The Sunnis can form their own statelet or join up with the Iraqi Sunnis.
The Alawites can keep Assad and the land along the coast and the Lebanon border.
Done. If there are any other world problems that you need me to solve, please let me know. I am happy to help.
Reliable electricity as a concern usually plays second fiddle to having food on the table and not waking up dead from a barrel bomb dropped on your house by your own people. But what do I know? First world privilege and all that.
Right. Hillary totally said "Let's attack Russia."
Meanwhile, in our universe, what she did was express support for no-fly zones against Assad's aircraft. Which the right pretended means "go to war with Russia", because if you attack one of Assad's planes, then you might accidentally hit Russian planes, and then everything will spiral out of control.
Now, ignoring the fact that the US at present actually maintains de facto no-fly zones over Kurdish and Daesh territory (including threatening Assad with shooting down his aircraft if they took off during a Kurdish uprising in al-Hasakah), and Turkey maintains their own no-fly zone in northern Syria... forgetting about all of that... Trump outright bombed a Syrian base to bits.
Naturally Republicans freaked out about the imminent war with Russia and condemned Trump for his recklessness! ..... but meanwhile in our universe, they gave Trump high poll ratings for his actions. Because of course, consistency isn't their strong suit.
FSB hits! FSB hits! Your democracy dies. Do you want your possessions identified?
I think that an independent Kurdistan would make a great western ally in the Middle East as they tend to be far more progressive, probably because many of them put more stock in their Kurdish heritage than their religion, and as ethnic group they're quite diverse religiously. However, I don't think Kurdistan would happen because Turkey would be heavily opposed since it would mean massive instability for a large part of their country and probably an eventual war.
We'd pretty much have to kick them out of Nato and give Russia carte blanche to fight Turkey, which Russia would probably do in order to secure control of the Bosphorus if they knew that the west wouldn't get involved. After the shit Erdogan has pulled, I wouldn't even feel bad about throwing them under the bus like that, and it would probably be better for the country in the long term to have him deposed and the country broken up.
I agree fully with your statements on our policy.
The obvious solution is a partition. The Syrian Kurds can join with the Iraqi Kurds in an independent Kurdistan.
Which Turkey will never tolerate along its boarder. Resulting in another probably inevitable war, but this time with a NATO member involved, which will tie the hands of both American and much of the EU.
The Sunnis can form their own statelet or join up with the Iraqi Sunnis.
Which sounds nice but won't be economically viable, land locked and we all know the future of mid east oil revenue isn't good, and that isn't the most productive area of region to start with. What else of value can come out of there.....
The Alawites can keep Assad and the land along the coast and the Lebanon border.
Sure right up until the Sunni groups decide to invade.
As nasty as it sounds this is a case where the devil we know was probably the best. We should have just kept our hands clean, and let Assad crush the rebels. This thing would be over by now. thousands would be dead or displaced rather than millions.
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Hillary said she would attack Russia over this, and Trump isn't so that proves he is a Russian Puppet. Not bombing Russia is immoral.
That's called aggressive negotiation.
Certainly the Kurds would consider it diplomatic.
Why does Turkey seem to have such an active, long-standing dislike for the Kurds? It's not like they could have presented any real threat to Turkey during Saddam Hussein's reign (they were too busy being persecuted & repressed by Hussein), and I've gotten the impression that BOTH Turkey & the Kurds have generally been friendly with the US... so why do they seem to hate *each other* so much?
Nothing more, nothing less. Western Exceptionalists, try and explain why Syria was targeted before the Arab Spring, or why the United States continued to sell weapons to the dictatorship of Bahrain. Which was busy, and violently, putting down it's Arab Spring protests at the same time as the U.S. was bombing Libya because Qaddafi was 'oppressing Arab Spring protesters'.
Which falls apart on scrutiny. Imagine a parallel universe, where a foreign power armed and funded the worst drug cartels to start a "rebellion" in the United States. And the "moderate proposal" was to let those foreign drug cartel fighters keep Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California. Why would the United States government agree to such a partition?
Why does Turkey seem to have such an active, long-standing dislike for the Kurds?
The Kurds were the one "other" that they couldn't get rid of, as they did the Armenians and Anatolian Greeks.
Too many to ignore, too similar to drive out, it's like the damn Irish.
Which it totally part and parcel of vowing to enforce a no-fly zone in an area patrolled by Russian jets. If it was Putin promising to enforce a no-carrier-fleet policy in the region, threatening to sink American aircraft carriers and other vessels in the process, would you argue with people who said Putin said "let's attack the US"?
Uh, yeah. The first world war was started over less. President Hillary starts enforcing her no-fly zone and some Russian jets are shot down. Then Russia starts enforcing Syrian sovereignty and starts shooting down U.S. jets - and navy ships firing missiles. You really need a picture painted for how this "spirals out of control" in a few very short, easy steps?
Yes, for forgetting all those violations of Syria's sovereignty, all those acts of war.
Syrian. Not Russian. But the goalposts do look quite lovely in the new location you've chosen for them.
As if consistency is the strong suit of Democrats? They switched so fast from hating Comey to singing his praises, it's a wonder they aren't all in traction from herniated disks. Besides, there's a gap between your premise and your conclusion - Republicans have loved imperialism and bombing other countries for several decades now - you think this is a change for them?
So much less light pollution, the night sky is probably stunning! Except for the glare from the occasional rockets, I mean.
Didn't this happen in Lawrence of Arabia ?
Nullius in verba
Why would the United States government agree to such a partition?
I would be willing to let them keep Texas.
I guess their greenhouse gas emissions would have gone down...
Pun intended!
1> Turkey owns both sides of the rather narrow strait the Russian Black Sea fleet has to pass through to reach the Mediterranean.
2> Their old buddy Saddam Hussein really didn't like Kurds, going so far as to use chemical weapons on his own civilians instead of on the Iranians he was presumably meant to use them on.
Uh, yeah. The first world war was started over less.
A little off topic, but the first world war was started because the heir to the throne of the Empire was murdered. He was an archduke, but people don't realize that he was also about to become emperor.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Disclaimer: I'm not an expert. This is a layman's understanding of the situation
The short version: Another example of ethnic tensions in west Asia. Segments of the Kurdish population consider Turkey an occupying power. Segments of the Turkish population view Kurds as terrorists. Both feel justified in inflicting pain on the other.
A slightly longer version: The Kurds haven't done well in the grand game of empires. To my knowledge, while the Kurds have traditional homelands, known as Kurdistan,, they've never been their own nation. Kurdistan encompasses portions of northern Syria, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, and, you guessed it, southeastern Turkey. Kurds haven't been particularly well treated by any of the aforementioned nations (Saddam Hussein infamously used chemical weapons on the Kurds during the Gulf War) but Turkey generally deals with Kurdish uprisings more harshly.
Kurds have been rebelling against the Turkish government since around 1920. As I understand it, they placed a lot of hope in the Wilsonian ideal of ethnic self-determination, but the Turkish government had other ideas in the wake of WWI. The Turkish government routinely cracks down on the Kurds, going so far as to ban the use of the Kurdish language. In response, there have been a handful of Kurdish uprisings or sustain terrorist campaigns by Kurdish nationalists against the Turkish government. In response, the Turkish government routinely cracks down on the Kurds. And so the cycle goes.
For their part, nationalist Turks don't recognize Kurds as a separate ethnic group. They refer to Kurds as "mountain Turks", considering a subset of the Turkish ethnicity who somehow lost the Turkish language. The Turkish government is adamant about maintaining territorial integrity and views any sort of Kurdish political autonomy as a threat to the sovereignty of the Turkish government.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
WWI started because Austro-Hungary, being backed by an alliance with Germany, imposed conditions on Serbia regarding the assassination investigation that pretty much made it a suzerain state, so they refused (btw, these were no mere diplomatic faux pas - the conditions were made excessively onerous so that they would be rejected, in order to have a casus belli). That led to both Austro-Hungary and Germany declaring war on Serbia. Since Serbia was backed by Russia, Russia declared war on the Central Powers, and so did France and the UK (because of a web of treaties).
Germany, by the way, had to pull Austro-Hungary out of the fire several times (foreshadowing what would happen in WWII with their allies) because the Austro-Hungarian army was a logistical nightmare with split loyalties.
Had the Austro-Hungarian Empire not been backed by Germany (like so many chihuahuas that are backed by the US these days and so bark and bite thinking that there will be no consequences), Gavrilo Princip and the rest of the Black Hand would have ended in the clink and that would have been it.
So no, the war did not start because of an assassination - it started because of a tangled web of alliances and because the chihuahua's master had ulterior motives and backed its antics.
Seriously? There were Russian troops on the ground at that base. You're going to act like the odds of accidentally hitting Russian troops while lobbing dozens of cruise missiles from hundreds of kilometers away is totally a nothing thing, but that the odds of hitting Russian aircraft when shooting at Assad's aircraft (after tracking them from takeoff from Assad's airbases (rather than the Russian airbase at Hmeimim)) is by contrast absurdly high? Do I even need to mention that as a consequence of Trump's attack Russia shut down the deconfliction line? It was reestablished just recently.
Are you talking about US troops in Syria? Because those have increased by an order of magnitude under Trump.
The hypocrisy is so glaring here I need sunglasses.
You seem to have made the assumption that Democrats care more about disliking Comey than they do about obstruction of justice. Seems Trump made that assumption as well.
Bad assumption.
Going from 22% support for bombing Syria as punishment for using chemical weapons to 86% support just because the president changed is not a simple case of "they always like it". Meanwhile, Democrats only shifted by 1%.
FSB hits! FSB hits! Your democracy dies. Do you want your possessions identified?
But it worked so well in Afghanistan, why not repeat it?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It was not "bombing tarmac".
FSB hits! FSB hits! Your democracy dies. Do you want your possessions identified?
Assad had been in power for well over a decade before the war started. His family was in power long before that. He did not need to manufacture an enemy to consolidate his power.
It made absolutely zero sense for Assad to use chemical weapons at that particular time. His forces were winning the war, so it's not as though this was some desperate, last-ditch effort to stave off imminent defeat. Furthermore, this supposed attack occurred shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Tillerson had publicly stated that Assad could be part of a post-war Syria. That was a departure from the long standing U.S. policy of regime change.
He's winning the war, the U.S. government said they won't call for his ouster in peace negotiations ... and then he decides to generate international condemnation with an ineffectual chemical weapons attack? I don't believe the official Western narrative for one minute. I'm not saying Assad wouldn't use chemical weapons because he's a nice guy, but because it made no strategic sense for him to do so. Hoax, false flag or an air strike that hit chemical weapons stored in the area.
And yet the US are still going to arm the Syrian Kurds, much against the Turkish tyrant's wishes.
There's still the Flynn connection to Turkey but that's most likely due to Trump's habit of valuing loyalty and friendship over honesty and competence, rather than anything sinister.
A caricature says more than words could: http://www.tomz.ch/wp/wp-conte...
(the soldier says "both target got hit").
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Wait, in that parallel universe a people is automatically equal to a drug cartel?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Then you obviously didn't deal a lot with international diplomacy. Arming some group that harasses some group we don't like has been the staple of diplomacy in the past century.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You've wrongly assumed that the Syrian civil war was caused by outsiders. It was mainly caused by the al-Assad family's dictatorial, kleptomaniac, discriminatory and murderous behaviour.
What I'd do? Grab my gun, evict the neighbor and use his. Duh.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Where do you stand on vi versus emacs?
Not quite.
A great deal of ancient Greek texts are readable today because of Islamic scholars. Islamic doctors were far ahead of their Christian counterparts 1000-500 years ago.
You might also take note of the fact that Arabic numerals have largely replaced Roman numerals.
Which it totally part and parcel of vowing to enforce a no-fly zone in an area patrolled by Russian jets. If it was Putin promising to enforce a no-carrier-fleet policy in the region, threatening to sink American aircraft carriers and other vessels in the process, would you argue with people who said Putin said "let's attack the US"?
Yes, because Putin has established no-fly zones before without attacking other countries. In fact, it's a fairly routine thing to do when any military operation is in progress. You warn non-hostile nations that you will be operating in an area, so don't fly there or you might get shot down. Same works for long term no-fly zones, and in Clinton's case she probably meant "go to the UN and get a mandate to establish a no-fly zone" rather than just talking about unilateral action.
The first world war was started over less.
Fortunately over the last century we have put systems in place to make sure that doesn't happen again. Things like that special phone number you call to let Russian generals know you will be firing Tomahawk missiles at Syria so they should probably avoid that area and if they don't well they can't say they were not warned.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Keep it running for a few more years and you will see how Assad got all the lights back on.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Convenient also how they just stop when the city is retaken by the government. I bet it's all lit again now but that would contradict the agenda.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
What did the Arabs ever do for us?
Besides teaching Newton about optics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Well, aside from writing, glass, the wheel, agriculture, and irrigation, what else of value could ever come out of the fertile crescent?
3. Refuse to acknowledge that Assad is winning the war and has no reason whatsoever to agree to #2.
The obvious solution is a partition.
GOTO 3.
Assad, or people of Syria loyal to him, has no reason whatsoever to agree to any kind of a partition of their country.
Even should they be losing the war.
That was all a joke, right?
But besides that... partition doesn't solve the ISIS issue.
Or the issue of dozens of other "armed groups" taking part in the war.
There's even a diagram of who's fighting, supporting or opposing who.
Sadly, it can't show all the factions and groups or all the political relations involved. Cause such a diagram would look closer to something like this.
Only with more colors involved.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
DOn't arm "rebels".
Don't overthrow governments.
DOn't have SF and CIA in almost every country
Don't have military bases in every country.
Stop thinking proxy wars are a magical long term solution with no consequences.
Take care of your existing troops.
So many of today's problems are past actions by our own government. When will we realize that no person, or government, can predict the fallout from their actions. But this time "it is different"!!!! Right?
We'd pretty much have to kick them out of Nato and give Russia carte blanche to fight Turkey, which Russia would probably do in order to secure control of the Bosphorus if they knew that the west wouldn't get involved. After the shit Erdogan has pulled, I wouldn't even feel bad about throwing them under the bus like that, and it would probably be better for the country in the long term to have him deposed and the country broken up.
Actually, the fact that Erdogan is leading an illiberal dictatorship he was legally elected to that pretends to be a democracy makes him extremely useful to Putin and makes it almost impossible that Russia would want to attack Turkey and risk him being removed from power. Yes, Russian and Turkish interests do not overlap much for sure, but Turkey has mostly given up on the idea of removing Assad and Russia is continuing to try to leverage Turkey as a business partner (some kind of oil pipeline). Both Erdogan and Putin have been legally elected by short sighted citizens who fail to see the bad sides of both. And if Turkey does become more and more conservatively Islamist as I suspect, in a weird way that plays into Russia's hands because it pisses off the west and pissing off the west is a good thing for Putin. Russians in general and Putin in specific don't have any long term vision so anything that falls into the category of "the west and the US don't like this" makes him happy and Turkey's current government definitely falls into that. Besides, Russia is a master of either creating problems they say only they can solve or exploiting problems created by others by posing themselves as the only solution to them, so Putin probably sees Erdogan in power as nothing but beneficial to them as no matter what happens, Russia will be poised to offer itself as the only solution to it.
Well, that's what you get, when you have a war.
When the Bronze age cultures in the Eastern Med collapsed in 1177 BC due to piracy, invasion, technology (Iron!) and famine, it took most of the Western world into the first of the Dark Ages. Will the slow disintegration of civilization in Syria spread to Europe and beyond?
The Fertile Crescent is getting less and less fertile. It's partially why the current conflict started in the first place.
Oh, and guess what? The US just launched an air attack on Assad's troops again. This time airplanes against ground forces - a mix of SAA (Syrian Army) and various paramilitaries - because they were getting too close to US special forces. Current estimates 6 dead, 3 injured.
But oh no, it's Hillary who was going to risk igniting a conflict in Syria...
FSB hits! FSB hits! Your democracy dies. Do you want your possessions identified?
A picture for how it spirals out of control exists, it is called _Threads_ and was made in 1984, IIRC.
Israel? No, the Israeli state's treatment of the Palestinians is despicable but it's paradise compared to Syria.
I did not say nothing of value came from there. I suggested little more of economic value will come out of there. When was the last time you bought a wheel, agricultural product, irrigation system etc from Syria.
Go ahead check all your receipts, I'll wait.
The point is that in no way will that region if carved out into its own state be able to support itself. Literally the MOST you can hope for is sub-subsistence productivity with a small enough gap that international charities and UN could fill the hole.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Which it totally part and parcel of vowing to enforce a no-fly zone in an area patrolled by Russian jets. If it was Putin promising to enforce a no-carrier-fleet policy in the region, threatening to sink American aircraft carriers and other vessels in the process, would you argue with people who said Putin said "let's attack the US"?
Uh, yeah. The first world war was started over less. President Hillary starts enforcing her no-fly zone and some Russian jets are shot down. Then Russia starts enforcing Syrian sovereignty and starts shooting down U.S. jets - and navy ships firing missiles. You really need a picture painted for how this "spirals out of control" in a few very short, easy steps?
Yes, for forgetting all those violations of Syria's sovereignty, all those acts of war.
Syrian. Not Russian. But the goalposts do look quite lovely in the new location you've chosen for them.
As if consistency is the strong suit of Democrats? They switched so fast from hating Comey to singing his praises, it's a wonder they aren't all in traction from herniated disks. Besides, there's a gap between your premise and your conclusion - Republicans have loved imperialism and bombing other countries for several decades now - you think this is a change for them?
Between Hillary and Trump, there is no doubt that Hillary is the smarter and more knowledgeable of the two. It takes knowledge to lead a country, not like the bungling baffoon that is Trump with the grade 7 vocabulary. Regarding war mongering, Hillary may not have done what Trump did -- drop a mother Sucker of a bomb to obliterate the caves. Trump is a proud racist, and one definitely would not be able to say that of Hillary.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada